Chapter 8 - An Interrupted Theatre Party

Seated upon a roomy lounge in the foyer of the Savoy were three
women who attracted more than an average amount of attention from
the passers-by. In the middle was the Duchess of Devenham, erect,
stately, and with a figure which was still irreproachable
notwithstanding her white hair. on one side sat her daughter,
Lady Grace Redford, tall, fair, and comely; on the other, Miss
Penelope Morse. The two girls were amusing themselves, watching
the people; their chaperon had her eye upon the clock.

"To dine at half-past seven," the Duchess remarked, as she looked
around the ENTRESOL of the great restaurant through her
lorgnettes, "is certainly a little trying for one's temper and
for one's digestion, but so long as those men accepted, I
certainly think they ought to have been here. They know that the
play begins at a quarter to nine."

"It isn't like Dicky Vanderpole in the least," Penelope said.
"Since he began to tread the devious paths of diplomacy, he has
brought exactness in the small things of life down to a fine
art."

"He isn't half so much fun as he used to be," Lady Grace
declared.

"Fun!" Penelope exclaimed. "Sometimes I think that I never knew a
more trying person."

"I have never known the Prince unpunctual," the Duchess murmured.
"I consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know."

Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.

"I don't think you'll get Penelope to agree with you, mother,"
she said.

"Why not, my dear?" the Duchess asked. "I heard that you were
quite rude to him the other evening. We others all find him so
charming."

Penelope's lip curled slightly.

"He has so many admirers," she remarked, "that I dare say he will
not notice my absence from the ranks. Perhaps I am a little
prejudiced. At home, you know, we have rather strong opinions
about this fusion of races."

The Duchess raised her eyebrows.

"But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!" she said. "A cousin of
the Emperor, and a member of an aristocracy which was old before
we were thought of! Surely you cannot class Prince Maiyo amongst
those to whom any of your country people could take exception."

Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Perhaps," she said, "my feeling is the result of hearing you all
praise him so much and so often. Besides, apart from that, you
must remember that I am a patriotic daughter of the Stars and
Stripes, and there isn't much friendship lost between Washington
and Tokio just now."

The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before
their couch on his way into the restaurant.

"My dear General," she said, "it seems to me that one meets every
one here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a
girl!"

General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair
and worn features. Notwithstanding his civilian's clothes, there
was no possibility of mistaking him anywhere, or under any
circumstances, for anything but a soldier.

"It is a delightful custom," he admitted. "It keeps one always on
the QUI VIVE; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I
find it interferes very much with my digestion."

"Digestion!" the Duchess murmured. "But then, you soldiers lead
such irregular lives."

"Not always from choice," the General reminded her. "The
Russo-Japanese war finished me off. They kept us far enough away
from the fighting, when they could, but, by Jove, they did make
us move!"

"We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo," the Duchess remarked. "You
know him?"

"Know him!" the General answered. "Duchess, if ever I have to
write my memoirs, and particularly my reminiscences of this war,
I fancy you would find the name of your friend appear there
pretty frequently. There wasn't a more brilliant feat of arms in
the whole campaign than his flanking movement at Mukden. I met
most of the Japanese leaders, and I have always said that I
consider him the most wonderful of them all."

The Duchess turned to Penelope.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

Penelope smiled.

"The Fates are against me," she declared. "If I may not like, I
shall at least be driven to admire."

"To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war," the General
remarked, "seems invidious, for it is my belief that throughout
the whole of the Japanese army such a thing as fear did not
exist. They simply did not know what the word meant. But I shall
never forget that the only piece of hand-to-hand fighting I saw
during the whole time was a cavalry charge led by Prince Maiyo
against an immensely superior force of Russians. Duchess," the
General declared, "those Japanese on their queer little horses
went through the enemy like wind through a cornfield. That young
man must have borne a charmed life. I saw him riding and cheering
his men on when he must have had at least half a dozen wounds in
his body. You will pardon me, Duchess? I see that my party are
waiting."

The General hurried away. The Duchess shut up her lorgnettes with
a snap, and held out her hand to a newcomer who had come from
behind the palms.

"My dear Prince," she exclaimed, "this is charming of you! Some
one told me that you were not well,--our wretched climate, of
course--and I was so afraid, every moment, that we should receive
your excuses."

The newcomer, who was bowing over her hand, was of medium height
or a trifle less, dark, and dressed with the quiet exactness of
an English gentleman. Only a slight narrowness of the eyes and a
greater alertness of movement seemed to distinguish him in any
way, as regards nationality, from the men by whom he was
surrounded. His voice, when he spoke, contained no trace of
accent. It was soft and singularly pleasant. It had, too, one
somewhat rare quality--a delightful ring of truth. Perhaps that
was one of the reasons why Prince Maiyo was just then, amongst
certain circles, one of the most popular persons in Society.

"My dear Duchess," he said, "My indisposition was nothing. And as
for your climate, I am beginning to delight in it,--one never
knows what to expect, or when one may catch a glimpse of the sun.
It is only the grayness which is always the same."

"And even that," the Duchess remarked, smiling, "has been yellow
for the last few days. Prince, you know my daughter Grace, and I
am sure that you have met Miss Penelope Morse? We are waiting for
two other men, Sir Charles Somerfield and Mr. Vanderpole."

The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess' daughter,--a
tall, fair girl, as yet only in her second season.

"Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!" the Duchess exclaimed.
"Really, I think we shall have to go in. We can leave a message
for Dicky; they all know him at this place. I am afraid he is one
of those shocking young men who entertain the theatrical
profession here to supper."

A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she
tore open.

"This is from Dicky!" she exclaimed, glancing it through
quickly,--"Savoy notepaper, too, so I suppose he has been here.
He says that he may be a few minutes late and that we are not to
wait. He will pick us up either here or at the theatre. Prince,
shall we let these young people follow us? I haven't heard your
excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of an hour
late?"

He bent towards her with troubled face.

"Dear Duchess," he said, "believe me, I am conscious of my fault.
An unexpected matter, which required my personal attention,
presented itself at the last moment. I think I can assure you
that nothing of its sort was ever accomplished so quickly. It
would only weary you if I tried to explain."

"Please don't," the Duchess begged, "so long as you are here at
last. And after all, you see, you are not the worst sinner. Mr.
Vanderpole has not yet arrived."

The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.

"Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?" he asked.

The Duchess shook her head.

"I do not know him very well," she said. "I asked him for
Penelope."

The Prince looked puzzled.

"But I thought," he said, "that Miss Morse and Sir Charles--"

The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.

"Sir Charles is very much in earnest," she whispered, "but very
very slow. Dicky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He
admires Penelope, and does not mind showing it. She is such a
dear girl that I should love to have her comfortably settled over
here."

"She is very intelligent," the Prince said. "She is a young lady,
indeed, for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry," he
concluded, "that I do not seem able to interest her."

"You must not believe that," the Duchess said. "Penelope is a
little brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner."

They made their way through the foyer to the round table which
had been reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.

"I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an
hour," the Duchess remarked, "but it is our theatrical managers
who are to blame. Why they cannot understand that the best play
in the world is not worth more than two hours of our undivided
attention, and begin everything at nine or a quarter-past, I
cannot imagine."

The Prince smiled.

"Dear Duchess," he said, "I think that you are a nation of
sybarites. Everything in the world must run for you so smoothly
or you are not content. For my part, I like to dine at this
hour."

"But then, you take no luncheon, Prince," Lady Grace reminded
him.

"I never lunch out," the Prince answered, "but I have always what
is sufficient for me."

"Tell me," the Duchess asked, "is it true that you are thinking
of settling down amongst us? Your picture is in the new
illustrated paper this week, you know, with a little sketch of
your career. We are given to understand that you may possibly
make your home in this country."

The Prince smiled, and in his smile there seemed to be a certain
mysticism. One could not tell, indeed, whether it came from some
pleasant thought flitting through his brain, or whether it was
that the idea itself was so strange to him.

"I have no plans, Duchess," he said. "Your country is very
delightful, and the hospitality of the friends I have made over
here is too wonderful a thing to be described; but one never
knows."

Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.

"I can never understand the Prince," she murmured. "Always he
seems as though he took life so earnestly. He has a look upon his
face which I never see in the faces of any of you other young
men."

"He is a bit on the serious side," Sir Charles admitted.

"It isn't only that," she continued. "He reminds me of that man
whom we all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the
same in the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes
seemed to see through one; he seemed to be living in a world of
his own."

"He was a religious Johnny, of course," Sir Charles remarked.
"They do walk about with their heads in the air."

Lady Grace smiled.

"Perhaps it is religion with the Prince," she said,--"religion of
a sort."

"I tell you what I do think," Sir Charles murmured. "I think his
pretence at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He
doesn't really cotton to us, you know. Don't see how he could.
He's never touched a polo stick in his life, knows nothing about
cricket, is indifferent to games, and doesn't even understand the
meaning of the word Sportsman.' There's no place in this country
for a man like that."

Lady Grace nodded.

"I think," she said, "that his visit to Europe and his stay
amongst us is, after all, in the nature of a pilgrimage. I
suppose he wants to carry back some of our civilization to his
own people."

Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the
table.

"I fancy," she murmured, "that the person you are speaking of
would not look at it in quite the same light."

"Has any one seen the evening paper?" the Duchess asked. "It is
there any more news about that extraordinary murder?"

"Nothing fresh in the early editions," Sir Charles answered.

"I think," the Duchess declared, "that it is perfectly
scandalous. Our police system must be in a disgraceful state.
Tell me, Prince,--could anything like that happen in your
country?"

"Without doubt," the Prince answered, "life moves very much in
the East as with you here. Only with us," he added a little
thoughtfully, "there is a difference, a difference of which one
is reminded at a time like this, when one reads your newspapers
and hears the conversation of one's friends."

"Tell us what you mean?" Penelope asked quickly.

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,--kindly,
even tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and
Penelope's attitude towards him was marked all the time with a
certain frigidity. Yet he spoke to her with the quiet, courteous
confidence of the philosopher who unbends to talk to a child.

"In this country," he said, "you place so high a value upon the
gift of life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one
man by another, or the death of a person whom you know."

"There is no tragedy in the world so great!" Penelope declared.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

"My dear Miss Morse," he said, "it is so that you think about
life and death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian
country--you have a very beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there
is a little more philosophy and something a little less definite
in the trend of our religion. Yet we do not dress Death in black
clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We fear him no more
that we do the night. It is a thing that comes--a thing that must
be."

He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it
seemed hard to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an
almost feverish desire either to contradict him or to prolong the
conversation by some means or other.

"Your point of view," she said, "is well enough, Prince, for
those who fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a
great cause. Don't you think, though, that the horror of death is
a more real thing in a case like this, where a man is killed in
cold blood for the sake of robbery, or perhaps revenge?"

"One cannot tell," the Prince answered thoughtfully. "The
battlefields of life are there for every one to cross. This
mysterious gentleman who seems to have met with his death so
unexpectedly--he, too, may have been the victim of a cause,
knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should face them."

The Duchess sighed.

"I am quite sure, Prince," she said, "that you are a romanticist.
But, apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this
happen in your country?"

"Why not?" the Prince answered. "It is as I have been saying: for
a worthy cause, or a cause which he believed to be worthy, there
is no man of my country worthy of the name who would not accept
death with the same resignation that he lays his head upon the
pillow and waits for sleep."

Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.

"To our great allies!" he said, smiling.

The Prince drank his glass of water thoughtfully. He drank wine
only on very rare occasions, and then under compulsion. He turned
to the Duchess.

"A few days ago," he said, "I heard myself described as being
much too serious a person. Tonight I am afraid that I am living
up to my reputation. Our conversation seems to have drifted into
somewhat gloomy channels. We must ask Miss Morse, I think, to
help us to forget. They say," he continued, "that it is the young
ladies of your country who hold open the gates of Paradise for
their menkind."

He was looking into her eyes. His tone was half bantering, half
serious. From across the table Penelope knew that Somerfield was
watching her closely. Somehow or other, she was irritated and
nervous, and she answered vaguely. Sir Charles intervened with a
story about some of their acquaintances, and the conversation
drifted into more ordinary channels.

"Some day, I suppose," the Duchess remarked, as the service of
dinner drew toward a close, "you will have restaurants like this
in Tokio?"

The Prince assented.

"Yes," he said without enthusiasm, "they will come. Our heritage
from the West is a sure thing. Not in my days, perhaps, or in the
days of those that follow me, but they will come."

"I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky," the Duchess
declared, as they rose from the table. "I shall never rely upon
him again."

"After all, perhaps, it isn't his fault," Penelope said,
breathing a little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. "Mr.
Harvey is not always considerate, and I know that several of the
staff are away on leave."

"That's right, my dear," the Duchess said, smiling, "stick up for
your countrymen. I suppose he'll find us sometime during the
evening. We can all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is
outside."

The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of
the hotel, where they waited while the Duchess' carriage was
called. Mr. Coulson was there in an easy chair, smoking a cigar,
and watching the people coming and going. He studied the
passers-by with ah air of impersonal but pleased interest.
Penelope and Lady Grace were certainly admirable foils. The
latter was fair, with beautiful complexion--a trifle sunburnt,
blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent in their
way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good; her
movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin
a little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what
she was,--a well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman,
of aristocratic parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more
simply dressed, save for the string of pearls which hung from her
neck, had the look of a creature from another world. She had
plenty of animation; a certain nervous energy seemed to keep her
all the time restless. She talked ceaselessly, sometimes to the
Prince, more often to Sir Charles. Her gray-green eyes were
bright, her cheeks delicately flushed. She spoke and looked and
moved as one on fire with the joy of life. The Prince, noticing
that Lady Grace had been left to herself for the last few
moments, moved a little towards her and commenced a courteous
conversation. Sir Charles took the opportunity to bend over his
companion.

"Penelope," he said,"you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is?
You don't really dislike the Prince, do you?"

"Why, of course not," she answered, looking back into the
restaurant and listening, as though interested in the music. "He
is odd, though, isn't he? He is so serious and, in a way, so
convincing. He is like a being transplanted into an absolutely
alien soil. One would like to laugh at him, and one can't."

"He is rather an anomaly," Sir Charles said, humming lightly to
himself. "I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he
must seem to your sex quite a romantic figure."

"He makes no particular appeal to me at all," Penelope declared.

Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.

"Sometimes, Penelope," he said, "I don't quite understand you,
especially when we speak about the Prince. I have come to the
conclusion that you either like him very much, or you dislike him
very much, or you have some thoughts about him which you tell to
no one."

She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.

"I like your last suggestion," she declared. "You may believe
that that is true."

On their way out, the Prince was accosted by some friends and
remained talking for several moments. When he entered the
omnibus, there seemed to Penelope, who found herself constantly
watching him closely, a certain added gravity in his demeanor.
The drive to the theatre was a short one, and conversation
consisted only of a few disjointed remarks. In the lobby the
Prince laid his hand upon Somerfield's arm.

"Sir Charles," he said, "if I were you, I would keep that evening
paper in your pocket. Don't let the ladies see it."

Somerfield looked at him in surprise.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To me personally it is of no consequence," the Prince answered,
"but your womenfolk feel these things so keenly, and Mr.
Vanderpole is of the same nationality, is he not, as Miss Morse?
If you take my advice, you will be sure that they do not see the
paper until after they get home this evening."

"Has anything happened to Dicky?" Somerfield asked quickly.

The Prince's face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard.
Penelope had turned to wait for them.

"The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box," she
said. "We have two stalls as well, but as Dicky is not here there
is really room for five. Will you get some programmes, Sir
Charles?"

Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some
change, and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the
carpeted way.

"I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying," she declared
quietly. "Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?"

The Prince's face was grave.

"I am sorry," he replied. "I did not know that our voices would
travel so far."

"It was not yours," she said. "It was Sir Charles'. Tell me
quickly what it is that has happened?"

"Mr. Vanderpole," the Prince answered, "has met with an
accident,--a somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps," he added,
"it would be as well, after all, to break this to the Duchess. I
was forgetting the prejudices of your country. She will doubtless
wish that our party should be broken up."

Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.

"Be brave," he said. "It is your part."

She stood still for a moment, and then moved on. His words had
had a curious effect upon her. The buzzing in her ears had
ceased; there was something to be done--she must do it! She
passed into the box, the door of which the attendant was holding
open.

"Duchess," she said, "I am so sorry, but I am afraid that
something has happened to Dicky. If you do not mind, I am going
to ask Sir Charles to take me home."

"But my dear child!" the Duchess exclaimed.

"Miss Morse is quite right," the Prince said quietly. "I think it
would be better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I
will explain to you later."

She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield's arm.

"We two are to go," she murmured. "The Prince will explain to the
Duchess."

The Prince closed the box door behind them. He placed a chair for
the Duchess so that she was not in view of the house.

"A very sad thing has happened," he said quietly. "Mr. Vanderpole
met with an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest
reports, it seems that he is dead!"